[footsteps]
[door opens]
Hello? Any clones in here today?
Hello...?
Eyungh, I guess we’re okay.
Still, you never know with these things...
[ominous ambience]
[Christmas LGR music plays, slightly off]
[...]
I guess we’re taking a look at another Christmas game?
I don’t remember recording this footage, but okay.
So this is Jazz Jackrabbit 2: The Christmas Chronicles, published and distributed in Europe
by Project Two Interactive in 1999.
And if you’ve played the more commonplace Holiday Hare ‘98, a demo CD often sold in
a jewel case like this one I got from Electronics Boutique back in the day, then you pretty
much know what Christmas Chronicles is all about.
You get three new levels using a new tileset, several reskinned enemies, and a new piece
of music by composer Alexander Brandon.
But Christmas Chronicles updates Holiday Hare to version 1.24, includes the Jazz Creation
Station, and allows you to play a third character: Lori Jackrabbit.
Yep, this is the sister of Jazz and Spaz introduced in Jazz 2: The Secret Files -- another European
exclusive released by Project Two Interactive in 1998.
Turns out Christmas Chronicles was originally going to be sent out as a gift to customers
who registered their copy of The Secret Files, but instead was released at retail in limited quantities.
Big thanks to Niels and Jakub for sending these over from the Netherlands by the way,
I don’t know if I’d ever have them otherwise.
Inside the box you get a product registration card that still references the Nintendo Ultra 64.
And then you have the jewel case with inserts echoing the box itself, a colorful CD-ROM
featuring a slightly altered iteration of the cover art, and a somewhat unhelpful little
instruction manual that only exists to let you know that it is *not* the instruction
manual in multiple languages.
Christmas Chronicles commences with the same logos and intro videos as the previous European
releases from Project Two, but things soon look a bit different.
Not only do you get a new splash screen,
but the entire main menu has received an appropriately snowy makeover.
Which, yeah, makes sense but it’s not what I got here in the US with my copy of Holiday Hare ‘98.
That just had the same ol’ Jazz 2 main menu for some reason, which I always found a bit
disappointing back then having been familiar with Holiday Hare ‘95.
So yeah, Christmas Chronicles does it properly from the get-go, and of course includes Lori
as a third playable character.
Although, playing as her may not be the most ideal option but we’ll get to that.
Anyway, despite being named The Christmas Chronicles, the episode remains the same as
the original Holiday Hare ‘98.
There’s only one world here, but split up into three levels with three distinct backgrounds
providing an evening, night, and daylight setting in that order.
And you know, it’s quite pleasant.
With no small part of that due to Mr. Brandon’s
holiday-inspired musical medley playing in the background.
♪♫ Holiday Hare music plays happily ♫♪
Surprising no one, however, is the fact that the gameplay
is identical to both Holiday Hare ‘98 and the original Jazz Jackrabbit 2.
After all, this was little more than a glorified demo for the full games, with Christmas Chronicles
in particular teasing The Secret Files.
So it’s all the same running, jumping, shooting, butt-stomping, gliding, sliding
and otherwise Jazzy Jackrabbiting you’d expect.
Each of the three levels are pretty substantial though, with a number of hidden areas, tricky
platforms, and powerful weapons to find.
It very much acts as a highly compressed but the nonetheless dense representation of the
full Jazz Jackrabbit 2 experience, and back when I first played Holiday Hare ‘98 that was great.
At the time I didn’t have the money to buy the full game, so finding this demo for like
five bucks at the local mall was awesome.
I had already been lusting after a copy of Jazz 2 after playing the shareware edition
a hundred times, but playing this holiday demo practically had me foaming at the mouth
for the full version.
And that wasn’t simply due to me being a big fan of the original Jazz for MS-DOS
even though I was.
But it was also because my only gaming option at home was the PC.
In the ‘90s, I absolutely loved 2D platformers, but not owning a game console of any kind
meant that being able to enjoy one at home was a rare occurrence.
Combine that with the family having very little disposable income for buying any kind of games
at all, and demos for things like Jazz Jackrabbit 2 felt like manna from heaven.
To be honest having a holiday theme was beside the point I just wanted more.
As a result, I played the shareware and holiday editions of Jazz 2 for months, well beyond
Christmas and well into the new year.
And I would’ve snatched up Christmas Chronicles too if I’d had that option here in the US,
because getting a new character, the JCS level editor, and further multiplayer options would’ve
been a welcome thing at a budget price point.
However, I might’ve been a tad a disappointed in playing through the holiday levels as Lori.
Not because she’s a bad character, far from it.
She’s a lot of fun to control actually, with satisfyingly fluid animation and an evolution
of moves similar to both Jazz and Spaz, making playthroughs with her feel unique from the other two.
The problem is there are several sections of these holiday levels that were built with
the abilities of Jazz and Spaz in mind, rather than Lori.
Jazz’s high jump move and Spaz’s double jump
make navigating platforms like this a breeze, but with Lori?
She isn’t equipped with a comparable move, meaning that there are certain platforms that
are nearly or completely impossible to reach.
It doesn’t break the game or anything, unlike sections of the original Jazz 2 episodes that
you can’t complete using Lori at all when you’re playing The Secret Files.
But yeah, it’s a thing you’re gonna run into in The Christmas Chronicles as well,
with more than a few of these spots that simply feel a bit more irksome than they should.
And that’s a shame, because otherwise this is an excellent little teaser for the full
version of Jazz 2, complete with a boss battle at the end.
Yeah, at the finale of the third level is Bilsy
a teleporting, fireball tossing demon wearing a santa hat.
Or is that a satan hat? Hehe.
Santa, satan, either way just pummel the guy with RF Missiles or whatever and he’ll
explode into a pile of particles.
Yay, Christmas is saved or something!
Enter your name into the high score table and proceed to have the juicy carrot of Jazz
Jackrabbit 2’s full version dangled in front of you for a while.
Ahh, how I drooled over these end-of-demo teasers back then.
Shareware downloads, demo discs [sigh!]
It’s weird, I’m almost more fond of the incomplete demos than I am the full versions
of some of these games.
And Jazz Jackrabbit Holiday Hare ‘98, and in turn The Christmas Chronicles, could certainly
fit under that rose-tinted umbrella.
By the time I got the complete game it was like, 2002 or something, and by then 2D platformers
didn’t hold my attention as much as FPS games and such.
Looking back I’m pretty sure I played more of the shareware and holiday levels, just
in terms of overall time spent, when it comes to Jazz 2.
I dunno I’m only speculating on that, but either way I have a massive fondness for these
Christmassey demos and still love going back to them this time of year.
I still don’t know exactly how I got here or why I’m reviewing this after Christmas, but uh.
Nonetheless, here we are.
I hope that you enjoyed this look at one of my favorite holiday games!
And that is it for this year’s Christmas Lazy Game Reviews
[fzzt] Ernh... [breathes in]
Uh, Christmas Lazy Ga-- [fzzzt]
Christmas [cough, fzzt] Christmas...
La-- [fuzzing] Christmas....
Christmas... [static, buzzing]
Christmaaassss!
[unsettling wheeze]
[wheezing chuckle...]
♪♫ jazzy rendition of Oh Little Town of Bethlehem plays ♫♪